ON THIS DAY
December 18, 2018
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE
DECEMBER 18, 1958 LOLITA, by Vladimir Nabokov, which has been shrilly denounced as pornography and as shrilly praised as art — and which was attacked in a House of Commons debate on the proposed new obscene publications law — will be published here in the spring [after initially being banned in Britain and France]. It is an account of a middle-aged man’s passion for a 12-year-old girl. Said Nabokov: ‘The bans are all to the good. My publisher is disappointed there haven’t been more.’ DECEMBER 18, 1967 LITTLE hope remained today that Australian Premier Mr Harold Holt will be found alive. The 59-year-old leader has not been since seen he vanished at midday yesterday, swimming in surf near his holiday home at Portsea, 70 miles south of Melbourne. [Holt’s body was never found.]
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
KEITH RICHARDS, 75. The Dartford-born Rolling Stone and wild man of rock started early, by being expelled from Dartford Technical High School for Boys for truancy in 1959. Though described by the Irish Independent as ‘the most elegantly wasted human being on earth’ he now eschews drugs and hardly ever touches alcohol. His marriage, on December 18, 1983, to Patti Hansen is still going strong.
RAY LIOTTA, 64. The u.S. actor, star of Field Of Dreams and Hannibal, used to work in a cemetery. His leading role in Goodfellas was described as ‘one of the best non-Oscarwinning moments ever’. He was left with a scar under his chin and two chipped teeth when he fainted while researching a role as a heart surgeon. He was observing a doctor inserting a four-inch needle into a patient’s stomach when he collapsed.
BORN ON THIS DAY
PAUL KLEE (1879-1940). The German-Swiss painter was a cat obsessive — about 30 of his works were inspired by his pets. An American collector once tried to shoo away one of his felines, Bimbo, after he had walked over one of Klee’s watercolours, but the artist said: ‘years from now, one of your art connoisseurs will wonder how in the world I ever got that effect.’
DAME GLADYS COOPER (1888-1971). The Londonborn actress started out as a chorus girl before finding fame in the West end, Broadway and Hollywood. She became the most popular soldiers’ pin-up of World War I. But she was probably best known for playing Henry Higgins’s mother in the 1964 film My Fair Lady. Both her daughters married leading British actors called Robert — Hardy and Morley.
ON DECEMBER 18…
IN 2016, Hungarian actress Zsa Zsa Gabor, who appeared in 70 films and married nine times, died aged 99.
WORD WIZARDRY
GUESS THE DEFINITION: Bodger (1577) A) A type of small rodent. B) A tramp. C) An itinerant wood-turner.
Answer below
PHRASE EXPLAINED Curtain lecture — meaning a reproof or telling-off given in secret, behind closed doors; it comes from the days when curtains were used to create a secluded place.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
THE problem with the rat race is that even if you win, you’re still a rat. Lily Tomlin, U.S. actress
JOKE OF THE DAY
HOW do monkeys make toast? They stick some bread under the gorilla. Guess The Definition answer: C